258 BULLETIN 772, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



joint and pedicel falling attached to the sessile spikelet; glumes 

 coriaceous, equal, usually -copiously clothed, at least at the base, with 

 long silky spreading hairs; sterile lemma thin and hyaline; fertile 

 lemma hyaline, the midnerve extending into a slender awn; palea 

 small and hyaline. 



Perennial reedlike grasses, with flat blades and terminal oblong, 

 usually dense silky panicles. Species about 20, in the warmer regions 

 of both hemispheres ; five in the United States, mostly in the Atlantic 

 Coastal Plain. 



Type species : Erianthus saccJiaroides Michx. 



Erianthus Michx., Fl. Bor. Amer. 1 : 54. 1803. Michaux describes two species, 

 E. saccJiaroides and E. brevibarbis. He derives the name of the genus from 

 two Greek words which mean hairy flower, because of the very densely villous 

 involucre below the spikelets, and he remarks that the genus is closely allied 

 to Saccharum. The first species, with long involucral hairs, he names 

 sacchar aides, and the second, with short hairs, brevibarbis. The first species, 

 better representing Michaux's idea of the genus, is chosen as the type. 



The commonest native species is Erianthus saccJiaroides (fig. 157) , 

 with straight awns and woolly panicles. Erianthus divaricatus (L.) 

 Hitchc., with pale panicles, and E. contortus Baldw., with dark 

 panicles, have flat, .twisted awns. Erianthm strictus Baldw. has 

 naked spikelets, and E. 'brevibarbis Michx. has short hairs at the base 

 of the spikelets. The plants are too coarse to be of value for grazing, 

 but some of our native species might well be cultivated for ornament. 



One species, E. ravennae (L.) Beauv., a native of the Mediterranean 

 region, is occasionally cultivated for ornament because of the silky 

 plumes. It is called Ravenna grass and also by the less distinctive 

 names, plume-grass and hardy pampas grass. The culms are several 

 feet high, growing in large clumps, with blades about half an inch 

 wide, tapering into a long slender point, the plume being as much as 

 2 feet long. 



132. ANDROPOGON L. 



Spikelets in pairs at each node of an articulate rachis, one sessile 

 and perfect, the other pedicellate and either staminate, neuter, or re- 

 duced to the pedicel, the rachis and the pedicels of the sterile spikelets 

 often villous, sometimes conspicuously so ; glumes of the fertile spike- 

 let coriaceous, narrow, awnless, the first rounded, flat, or concave on 

 the back, several-nerved, the median nerve weak or wanting; sterile 

 lemma shorter than the glumes, empty, hyaline; fertile lemma 

 hyaline, narrow, entire or bifid, usually bearing a bent and twisted 

 awn from the apex or from between the lobes; palea hyaline, small 

 or wanting; pedicellate spikelet awnless, sometimes staminate and 

 about as large as the sessile spikelet, sometimes consisting of one or 

 more reduced glumes, sometimes wanting, only the pedicel present. 



Rather coarse perennials (in the United States), with solid culms, 

 the spikelets arranged in racemes, these numerous, aggregate on an 



